- Project Year:
2019
- REU Student (s):
Erica Cai | Rutgers University-New Brunswick NJ
- Student 1 Institution:
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
- Project Mentor:
Janne Lindqvist
- Project Mentor Area:
Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Project Abstract:
Ephemeral messaging is messaging to a public phone number or email account, where all messages are publicly displayed on a website but disappear after a short period of time. We have collected and analyzed over 200,000 text and email messages to explore the uses of ephemeral messages and the security and privacy issues that they present. Unlike private and permanent messages, very few ephemeral messages are part of personal conversations, and most of them contain codes to verify accounts. From these messages, we find that many companies may have a bug or bias in their random number generator, leading to their reuse of verification codes. We also find that many messages contain very specific and personal information that strangers may use to conduct social engineering or access personal, private accounts.
